At the heart of this processor lies its formidable multi-threading architecture, featuring 72 cores capable of handling 288 simultaneous threads. This immense parallel processing power is central to the design of the Intel Xeon Phi 7295, making it exceptionally suited for highly threaded scientific and analytical workloads. Each core leverages four-way Intel Hyper-Threading to maximize computational throughput on tasks that can be broken into many parallel streams. This design philosophy prioritizes raw parallel performance over single-threaded speed, targeting a specific niche in the high-performance computing landscape. The chipβs capability to manage such a high thread count is its defining characteristic for complex simulations and data analysis.
The processor operates at a base clock of 1.5 GHz, with a maximum turbo frequency reaching 1.6 GHz across all cores under optimal conditions. While these speeds may seem modest compared to consumer CPUs, they are carefully balanced against the chip's 320W TDP and the thermal demands of 72 active cores. This Knights Mill generation part uses a 14nm process to integrate this many cores into a single package, focusing on energy-efficient throughput. The clock speed strategy ensures that the many-core Xeon Phi processor can deliver sustained performance within its substantial power envelope, avoiding thermal throttling in dense server deployments.
- Core Configuration: 72 physical cores with 4 threads each, enabling 288 logical processors.
- Cache Hierarchy: Features 32KB L1 and 512KB L2 cache per core, utilizing a distributed mesh interconnect without a traditional shared L3 cache.
- Power Design: A 320W Thermal Design Power (TDP) rating manages the substantial energy requirements of the many-core design.
- Target Workloads: Optimized for highly parallel, floating-point intensive tasks like financial modeling, seismic processing, and scientific simulations.
- Platform Integration: Utilizes the Intel Socket 3647 and is designed for scalable deployment in multi-card HPC and AI inference systems.
Primary use cases for this computing solution are specialized, focusing on high-performance computing (HPC) environments where parallelizable, double-precision floating-point performance is critical. Its architecture targets workloads such as seismic analysis, computational fluid dynamics, and deep learning inference where task-level parallelism is high. The 320W power consumption necessitates robust server cooling solutions, positioning it in purpose-built data center racks. Ultimately, the Intel Xeon Phi 7295 chip from Intel serves as a strategic many-core accelerator for specific technical and scientific computing challenges, rather than general-purpose server duties.